Diagnosis and treatment of invasive fungal infections: Looking ahead

Abstract

Improved standards of care depend on the development of new laboratory diagnostic and imaging procedures and the development of new antifungal compounds. Immunochromatography technologies have led to the development of lateral flow devices for the diagnosis of cryptococcal meningitis and invasive aspergillosis (IA). Similar devices are being developed for the detection of histoplasmosis that meet the requirements for speed (â 1/415 min assay time) and ease of use for point-of-care diagnostics. The evolution of molecular tools for the detection of fungal pathogens has been slow but the introduction of new nucleic acid amplification techniques appears to be helpful, for example T2Candida. An A..